Archive of Our Own

1. a hat overboard means a long journey ahead

                They’re almost a week out to sea before Jim is given any freedom to roam the Revenge. Letting Jim roam seems like a hideous miscalculation to Frenchie, but it’s possible that Blackbeard and his crew have yet to realize that Jim had been inches away from maiming every person on this ship even on a good day. Frenchie could warn them, but passing time and changing circumstance have only made him firmer in his belief that anyone Jim stabs probably deserves a stabbing.

                He does reassess his opinion a bit when he’s trudging down to his hammock after middle watch and ends up being dragged backwards into a shadowy corner that seems a suspiciously prime place for being stabbed, but—no, no. If Jim stabs him, they undoubtedly have a good reason and he’s at peace with his fate. He’d like the chance to talk it through with them first, of course, which is difficult when they have a hand clapped firmly across his mouth.

                He thinks about biting, but they all know how that ended for poor Lucius.

                Jim swears and jerks back. “Did you—did you just lick me?”

                Frenchie shrugs, apologetic but not particularly remorseful. It had worked, after all. The narrow-eyed look that Jim gives him is disgusted but not actively murderous, which means that when they hold a finger to their lips and gesture for him to follow them he does so willingly with a little song in his heart. He’s working out the lyrics in his head as they go. Something like hurray, I am not going to die today. Not his best work, but it’s not as though he’s likely to have the opportunity to play it any time soon. Blackbeard is not nearly as musically inclined as Ed was. It had only taken one very specific threat involving his lute and the parts of his anatomy to which said instrument might be applied for Frenchie to decide that maybe now was not the time to nurture his creative talents, no matter how supportive Captain Bonnet had been.

                He follows Jim into the small room that he had once shared with Wee John. Probably wouldn’t have given it up if they’d known how little their luck would change as a result. He would’ve expected someone on Blackbeard’s crew to have evicted Jim from their cozy little cubbyhole by now, but maybe no one had worked up the nerve yet. For the first time since he had been summoned to the captain’s quarters and asked if he could sew, Frenchie feels some of the tension ease out of his shoulders. “Hey, are you looking for a roommate? ‘Cause—.”

                “Sorry,” Jim says. They fling back the lid of the large humpback trunk against the wall with a little more force and drama than Frenchie thinks is strictly necessary. “Already full up.”

                Lucius looks sweaty and sullen, folded nearly in half to fit in Jim’s trunk. “I wish you’d told me we were expecting company. I would have tried to tidy up a bit. Maybe washed the old sock smell out of my hair.”

                “You know,” Jim says, “you’re not very grateful for a man that I didn’t let drown.” They prop an elbow against the edge of the trunk’s open top, casual and comfortable like they regularly store crewmates in their luggage.

                “I can’t wait to hear why this is happening,” Frenchie says.

                They tell him, in pieces. One thing becomes clear during the telling: Lucius can’t stay aboard the Revenge.

                “Maybe we should all leave,” Frenchie says to Jim the next day, when they have a rare moment of privacy while mending the spare suit of sails, but there’s no conviction in his voice and Jim’s answering grunt is not encouraging.

                In the end, they smuggle Lucius off the ship when they next make port, just one more trunk to unload with the loot they had come ashore to fence. “He’ll be fine,” Frenchie says as he and Jim return to the Revenge, mostly to reassure himself that Lucius is more than capable of navigating a pirate port on his own without getting murdered, mauled, or otherwise mishandled. Jim bobs their head in a nod and then ruins it by shrugging.

                A sharp gust of wind from off the harbor catches the brim of Jim’s hat as they climb over the railing. They grab for it, but not quite fast enough, and Frenchie watches as they clamber back down the rope ladder with more grace than he would have managed to try to recover their wayward headwear from the harbor. His stomach feels uneasy in a way he’s tempted to label as foreboding.

                “Ah, good, you’re back,” Blackbeard says, in a jovial tone that sounds an awful lot like Edward but which Frenchie has learned not to trust. His hand is hard around the back of Frenchie’s neck, but only for a moment before he lets go, a brief squeeze that could be mistaken for affection, and Frenchie is sure it’s his imagination that makes him think Blackbeard is disappointed to see them.  

2. if knives cross on the table, an argument is sure to follow

                Frenchie is back to patching the sails—slower now, because he’s figured out that if he finishes his work, Izzy will just give him more work. Jim has abandoned even the pretense of helping, and is instead sharpening their knives, methodically, one after another. They seem to have an endless supply, and Frenchie is legitimately starting to wonder how it is that they don’t clank when they walk.

                They finish honing the edge of one of their blades and toss it aside, more carelessly than they would have a few scant weeks earlier. Frenchie isn’t the only one just going through the motions. The knife rattles against the small pile already present on the scarred wooden tabletop.

                “Why did you stay?”

                Jim rarely initiates conversation these days, and Frenchie is the only one of the crew they talk to at all; with everyone else they might as well be a mute again. It makes him wish that he had a better answer to give them than this: he had stayed because there was no guarantee that anywhere else would be better. He’s served on a few ships since being given the choice between the gallows and an escape to sea, merchant vessels at first and then pirate sloops, and they were all mostly the same at the end of the day. An unstable captain and a vindictive first mate are nothing different from what he’s had before, and likely nothing different than what he’d get if he signed on with some other crew.

                The Revenge had been different, for a time. They had all almost died on the regular, of course, but the rest of it—that had been nice.

                “Couldn’t leave you all alone here, now could I?” he asks, and feels a little bit bad about being so glib when Jim turns their head to hide a smile, the first one he’s seen in forever. Frenchie guiltily decides that it doesn’t matter if he hadn’t meant it when he said it, just so long as he means it now. “What about you?”

                They pause for a moment before the dull, rhythmic scrape of metal against leather strop resumes.  “Lucius is a good friend,” Jim says, which is the first Frenchie has heard of them considering any of the crew friends, other than maybe Olu. “He’ll find out what happened to the rest of the crew, and he’ll find a way to get word to us.” They hold up the knife they’ve been working on, turning it this way and that so the sun glints off the newly sharpened edge. “Depending on what that word is, I might be exactly where I want to be.”

                Unlike some of the crew, Frenchie has never really wanted to be Blackbeard. He still spares a moment to feel distantly grateful that he’s not Blackbeard.

                They both return to their work, but a while later Jim speaks up again. “Hey. Seems I need a new roommate. You know, if you’re still interested.” It’s not the most gracious invitation Frenchie has ever received, but it’s still enough to make him smile, for the first time in what feels like forever.

3. lead with your right foot when stepping onto a ship, or you’ll be unlucky

                Izzy still hasn’t quite mastered boarding and disembarking the Revenge on one good leg. He stumbles coming over the railing and lands hard on his injured left foot. It’s reflex more than honest concern that makes Frenchie reach out to steady him, and he rewards Frenchie by cursing and taking a swipe at Frenchie’s shins with his cane.

                Blackbeard doesn’t even break stride. Izzy hurries to catch up with him. “Like I was saying, we’ll need to rejoin the flotilla—.”

                “Not yet.”

                The noise Izzy makes in the back of his throat is pure frustration. “Why, Edward? What possible reason could you have for continuing to captain this ridiculous ship with a crew of five when you have four hundred waiting for your command?”

                Now Blackbeard stops. He looks at Izzy, and there’s a mean kind of amusement in the glint of his eyes and the curve of his mouth, barely visible now through a month and a half’s uneven growth of beard and the flaking remnants of the ungodly mix of wig paste and bone black he still insists on smearing all over his face. “Does it matter?”

                Izzy shudders. He sounds almost docile when he says, “No, Blackbeard.”

4. a cat on a ship is bad good luck

                Frenchie looks at the cat.

                The cat looks back at him, unimpressed.

                “You can’t tell anyone,” Fang says.

                Frenchie just stands there, frozen with indecision between his very natural desire not to have a cat aboard their already very clearly doomed ship and his equally intense wish to provide his new commanding officers with as little real help as possible while still keeping his neck off the proverbial (literal) chopping block.

                “Please,” Fang says, and his big brown eyes are all soft and beseeching and Frenchie isn’t a monster, so he steps further into what had once been the jam room and shuts the door behind him.

                Frenchie doesn’t tell anyone, in the end. He settles for spending as much time as he can in the jam room with Fang and the little beast, just so she doesn’t get any big ideas about hexing them or stealing their breath while they sleep or whipping up a ship-sinking storm with her tail. She’s a pretty thing named Turnip, with big, fluffy white paws and a long, lanky black body. Most of the time he only watches as Fang dotes on her, his big hands gentle as he strokes over her fur. Occasionally Frenchie will allow her to rub her cheeks against his knuckles and give her a little scratch behind the ears, just to—to lull her into a false sense of security, make her think that he’s lowering his defenses.

                “Why’d you even bring her aboard?” Frenchie eventually asks, once a few days have passed and it seems like they’re friends again and perhaps Fang might answer a question with something other than a shake of his fist.

                “Captain decided to keep Bonnet,” Fang says with a shrug. “I sort of figured he might let me get away with having a pet again, that being the case. Now, though.” He doesn’t finish the thought, only sighs.

                “Yeah,” Frenchie says.

                Blackbeard does find out eventually, of course. He comes across Fang and Frenchie in the no-longer-a-jam-room one afternoon, dragging the little rag mouse Frenchie had shown Fang how to make across the floor for Turnip’s amusement. Turnip approaches Blackbeard immediately, sniffing at the leather of his boots like she has every right, like this is her ship and she’s making sure that the captain passes muster. Fang looks like he’s about to be sick, and Frenchie sort of hopes that she is a witch, because at least then she’ll have the devil on her side when facing off with Blackbeard.

                “Captain, I know you said no pets, but Turnip, she—.”

                “That I did,” Blackbeard says, his voice perilously soft. Fang’s mouth snaps shut. Blackbeard leans forward to take a closer look at Turnip. He offers her a hand, and she shamelessly, fearlessly shoves her head into his fingers. Poor idiot animal doesn’t even know the danger she’s in, especially since a moment later she grows bored of showing affection and chooses violence instead, batting ineffectively at the dark leather of Blackbeard’s glove with her paw. Blackbeard’s expression is unreadable as he pulls his hand back and stands up straight.

                “Seems to me,” he says, “that Turnip isn’t a pet. Turnip is a working member of my crew. Fierce little mouser, is she?” He nods at their improvised toy, now sitting abandoned by Frenchie’s knee.

                Frenchie has never once seen Turnip go after either mouse or rat, probably because Fang has been feeding her scraps from his rations, but he immediately replies, “Yes, sir.”

                “That settles it, then.” Blackbeard looks at Fang, and it’s like he’s preparing to say something else, but in the end all that comes out is, “See that the newest member of the crew has a proper berth,” which is how Frenchie ends up spending the rest of the day with Fang turning spare rope and scrap fabric into a cat-sized hammock.

                Later that night they’re up on deck, half drunk on the thrill of narrowly avoiding a terrible fate and also half drunk on rum. The sea is calm, and Turnip is enjoying her newfound freedom to roam by rubbing cat hair on every surface she can find. “Do you think she ensorcelled him?” Frenchie asks, because honestly that seems the most likely explanation.

                Fang laughs, his flushed cheeks scrunching up in a way that makes it impossible to be offended. “See, this is how I know you were raised on land. Everyone knows a cat is a ship’s luck.”

                Frenchie watches as Turnip begins sharpening her claws against the wood of the capstan. “Huh,” he says, and then he laughs a little too, although he’s not sure what he’s laughing at. “Fancy that.”

5. if you drop a your sewing scissors on a Sunday, you’ll receive a strange visitor

                His father is a sailor, but Frenchie is raised on land.

                His granny is the first one to teach him to throw salt over his shoulder and never to return a borrowed pin. She teaches him not to toast with water to avoid a death by drowning, even though neither of them think then that he will go to sea. Later, he will remember her hands best, long skinny fingers always busy making needle lace or stitching delicate crewelwork birds out of silk. She keeps a roof over their heads by taking in fancywork for a local stay maker, her nimble hands remembering how to sew trim and embroider boning channels long after she starts to forget other things. She calls him by his grandfather’s name as often as not, but she’s never forgotten to knock her knuckles against the table after saying something she doesn’t want the heavens to hear.

                His Aunt Manon is the one to actually raise him, and the one to teach him that his granny’s superstitions are true. “Of course she thinks it’s bad luck to spill salt,” she says, with a sharp crack of laughter. “Do you know how high the tax on salt is?” He does, mostly because the only thing Manon complains about as much as the stay maker’s stingy hand with his purse is the gabelle.

                She gathers a few precious grains on the tip of her index finger and tosses them over her left shoulder, then answers the question he doesn’t ask with a smile. “It makes her feel better. I don’t blame her. Who wouldn’t want to make their own luck?”

                Manon isn’t actually his aunt, but she’s lived with his granny since his grandfather died and he can’t remember a time when he didn’t know her. He doesn’t question her presence in his life, the same way he doesn’t find anything strange about the way she and his granny sleep curled around each other or the gentle way Manon will press kisses to his granny’s knuckles and fingertips while massaging the cramps from a long day’s labor out of her hands.

                She’s the one who watches him with dark, worried eyes when he starts bringing home more coin than the position he’s taken in one of the grand houses would provide. She probably thinks he’s stealing. That would be bad enough. What he’s really done is learned to listen at the right doors and smile in an appropriately obsequious way even when someone is saying something terrible to him. He tells a bishop that he has a patented tonic for male enhancement, sells a pigeon with dyed plumage to the royal menagerie as an exotic specimen from faraway lands and, for two glorious weeks, convinces the newly widowed Duchess of Berry that he can tell at a glance which of her friends like likes her (this last one is true, but less because he has some kind of witchy knowledge and more because servants hear everything).

                He’s making his own luck.

                Manon is the one to take him to the port when it all falls apart. She presses a dry kiss to his cheek and says, “Don’t come back. I’d rather you alive than here.”

                He doesn’t go back.

                The morning after his night celebrating with Fang, Frenchie is up earlier than his hangover wants him to be. “Shouldn’t have offered to keep me company on watch if you were going to be drinking,” Jim says, absolutely merciless. Frenchie grumbles, but he collects the pile of mending he’s agreed to do for Ivan in exchange for having his own watch covered the night before and follows Jim up on deck.

                They’re the only ones awake to see the seagull arrive. She stares them a little too intelligently with beady yellow eyes, and it’s unnerving enough to send a shiver down Frenchie’s spine and make him fumble his scissors and thread.

                “Olivia?” Jim says. They don’t look like they really believe it. When the gull lets out a high-pitched shriek in response, they still don’t look like they believe it, not until they notice the rolled piece of paper neatly tied to Olivia’s leg.

6. to see a seagull floating on the ocean is a good omen for sailors

                “What does it say?”

                “Give me a second. I think Lucius learned how to write dirty notes in Spanish and not much else, and—he knows I read English, right?”

                “No. None of us know anything about you. You’re a mysterious badass and we’re all way too scared to ask any questions after the last time.”

                “Heh. Yeah. I know. It’s great. Is some of this in Latin? Why would I know Latin?”

                “Well, it makes sense. You were raised in a church.”

                “How does that make—oh.”

                “Jim? What is it?”

                “Alive. They’re alive.”

7. don’t wear pearls if you’re in love, or you’re likely to shed many tears

                Blackbeard is drunk. Very drunk. Drunk enough that Izzy had stormed out an hour earlier, leaving Frenchie here with Roach’s second best soup pot and no idea what he’s supposed to do beyond keep the world’s most famous pirate from drowning in his own vomit.

                Perhaps the drinking had started as celebratory. The merchant vessel that had surrendered at the sight of Blackbeard’s flag earlier that day had been carrying a shipment of tobacco, but there had also been a small chest of pearls, probably smuggled out of La Paz and left off of the ship’s manifest.  The captain certainly hadn’t looked happy when Blackbeard had found the chest beneath some loose boards. Blackbeard had muttered something about it not being a very good secret compartment, because some people were impossible to please.

                If the drinking started celebratory, now it’s nothing but depressing. Not even the kind of depressing that Ed had been immediately after his return to the ship; Blackbeard just lies there on top of his desk, head propped up on a pillow and hands folded across his stomach, brooding at the ceiling. He doesn’t talk as much as Ed did, either. He does occasionally throw bottles, but mostly they’re empty and none of them have actually been aimed at Frenchie. He thinks that’s the case, at least, although it’s possible that Blackbeard is just drunk enough that he can’t manage to hit a moving target. There are pearls spread out on every surface, on the desk beside Blackbeard and strewn across the bed that had once belonged to Captain Bonnet, sliding across the floor in time to the roll of the ship, a king’s ransom that Blackbeard has spilled and not bothered to have cleaned up.

                “The problem is,” Blackbeard says, and then stops to take a swig from his current bottle. Whatever thought he was about to voice seems to have been swept away by a tide of rum, but he’s still staring at Frenchie like he expects a response.

                “I’m sure you’ll get it sorted,” Frenchie says without missing a beat. He pairs it with the kind of smile he’s spent years practicing on powerful men who don’t think Frenchie’s life is worth much. Pirate or priest or prince, they’re none of them quite so different as they seem to think they are.

                Blackbeard turns on his side to take a better look at Frenchie, and it should be ridiculous, this middle-aged man in leather draped across his desk in a drunken stupor, but Frenchie can’t help but think of Turnip on those days when she’s decided she’d like to play with one of the ship’s stowaway mice before eating it.

                (The previous day she had left a dead one in Izzy’s shoe. Izzy had been furious, Frenchie had been delighted, and Fang had spent several minutes earnestly informing Izzy that this was just Turnip’s way of making friends. Fang might even be right, since Jim has been a lot more forthcoming with the chin scratches since finding a dead rat at the end of their bunk; Frenchie is now certain that Jim respects the cat more than they respect any other member of the crew.)

                “Are you?” Blackbeard asks. “You shouldn’t be.” He pauses. “I killed Lucius, you know. Chucked him overboard right before I marooned the rest of the crew. You might not like my version of sorted, mate.”

                The threat is impossible to miss, and Frenchie starts resignedly calculating his odds of survival before he realizes that Blackbeard’s eyes are wet.

                He really shouldn’t tell Blackbeard.

                He’s not going to tell Blackbeard.

                Shit, he’s not made of stone. He is absolutely going to tell Blackbeard.

                “Lucius is alive, actually,” he says. He reaches out a tentative hand to pat the air a good solid five inches away from Blackbeard’s shoulder, because like hell is he actually touching his captain without warning; it’d be hard to play the lute one-handed. “So it’s. You know. Fine.” It’s not, but it’s certainly more fine than if Blackbeard had actually managed to off Lucius, and that probably counts for... something.

                The noise that Blackbeard makes is soft enough that Frenchie can pretend not to hear it. “How?”

                “Rescued by a pod of dolphins,” Frenchie says. He’s not actually stupid enough to admit that Jim had rescued Lucius and Frenchie had helped to get him off the Revenge. “And mermen,” he adds, just because he knows that Lucius would like that.

                Blackbeard flops onto his back again. He takes one of the pearls in his hand, rolling it idly between his fingers like he can somehow feel the cool, smooth nacre through his gloves. He’s silent for a long time before saying, “I’m very drunk, you know. Probably won’t remember a bit of this tomorrow.”

                “I’d really appreciate that,” Frenchie says, with the utmost sincerity. Jim never needs to know about this.

                If Blackbeard does remember their discussion the next day, he shows no sign of it, but early in the evening, when the moon is just starting to crawl over the horizon, he stretches until his back pops and says, to no one in particular, “Nice night for it.” Then he looks at Frenchie. His expression is relaxed, maybe even content. He’s a bit like Edward right then, in a way that Frenchie almost finds himself believing. “Why don’t you play something for us?”

8. three knocks on a door, window, or wall means a death in the family

                Izzy knocks sharply on the door three times before entering. He looks none-too-pleased to find that Blackbeard isn’t alone in the captain’s quarters: Frenchie is tuning his lute in the corner, the cat is sprawled across a sunny place on the floor, and Jim and Blackbeard have spent the last hour playing knife fingies while Blackbeard tells a horrible but admittedly fascinating story about watching some crabs eat a man’s eyes. Frenchie thinks Jim is winning, but since the only way to lose involves chopping off a finger, maybe they’re both winning and the top of Captain Bonnet’s old desk, pitted now with knife marks, is the only real loser.

                Frenchie had been a little concerned that this was some ploy of Jim’s to get within arm’s reach of Blackbeard while armed, but they’ve been moderately less inclined to shed blood since getting word that the rest of the crew is alive, and Frenchie is pretty sure that right now they’re just having fun showing off.

                “Found a buyer already?” Blackbeard asks. The steady rhythm of his knife hitting the desk doesn’t slow, and it’s clear for anyone to see that he’s more absorbed in the game than he is in whether or not his first mate has found someone in the Republic of Pirates willing to fence their chest of stolen pearls.

                “Not exactly,” Izzy says. “Heard a rumor going around that I thought you might be interested in knowing about, captain.”

                His face is doing something weird, like he’s trying not to sneeze. It takes Frenchie a long moment to realize that Izzy is biting back a smile, which is—really very upsetting to look at, and even more upsetting to contemplate.

                “Gossip, Iz?”

                “You’ll want to know,” Izzy repeats, and then, “Stede Bonnet is dead.”

                The knife sinks into the wood with a very final sounding thunk. Frenchie’s finger slips on the string he’s tuning, and the resulting note is sharp and sour. Turnip turns over to reveal her tummy, which Frenchie has learned is both an invitation and a trap, but she’s an animal and also possibly a witch, so it’s not fair to expect her to react appropriately to tragic news.

                “How?” Frenchie asks, mostly because that seems like the sort of thing that should be asked and neither Jim nor Blackbeard appear to be inclined to speak.

                “Mauled by a jungle cat. Then run down by a carriage. Then crushed beneath a piano.”

                Jim makes a faint, disbelieving noise, which Frenchie doesn’t think is entirely fair. Captain Bonnet had cheated death a lot, and maybe it had just finally caught up with him all at once. Frenchie isn’t surprised. He is, he realizes, sad. The captain had been—well, honestly, the captain had been the sort of mark who would have made Frenchie salivate back when he still made a living lying to rich people and also wildly unhinged, but he had been kind, in his way, and for a while it had seemed like he cared.

                “I had my doubts at first as well,” Izzy says. Frenchie wonders if he’s the only one who thinks there’s a silent because it was too good to be true at the end of that sentence. “It happened in front of half of Bridgetown, though, including his widow.”

                The silence stretches long enough that it’s clear that Frenchie will have to be the one to say something again, but he hasn’t got the faintest idea what that something is supposed to be. Blackbeard makes a rough sort of sound, and for one white hot panicked moment Frenchie is certain he’s going to have to figure out how to comfort the most feared pirate of living memory for a second time. Blackbeard’s head is lowered, his face impossible to make out behind a curtain of matted gray-black hair, but Frenchie can see his shoulders shaking, which seems like an undeniable sign that the waterworks have begun. Frenchie hopes Jim doesn’t fuck off and leave him to handle it alone, or make that face, the one they make when they’re feeling just a little too aware that they’re the only cool person in the room. It’s not exactly in the spirit of how things are handled – used to be handled – on the Revenge, and also Blackbeard will probably kill them both.

                Blackbeard makes another little noise. It’s a cracked, dry thing that sounds like it’s half caught in his throat, and that’s why Frenchie doesn’t immediately identify it for what it is: laughter. Blackbeard is laughing. He lifts his head and there are tears streaming from his eyes, but they’re tears of mirth. Frenchie admittedly hadn’t been looking forward to the sad crying, but he still feels pretty strongly that it would’ve been better than this. “A cat,” Blackbeard gasps, swiping at his watering eyes with his gloves. Izzy is no longer bothering to hide his smile, and Jim’s grip on the hilt of their knife is no longer quite so friendly. “A—what kind of cat? Was it a tiger? Iz. Izzy. You’ve got to find out if it was a tiger, man. I’ve got to know.”

                He makes a vague shooing motion. It’s not exactly the kind of order that Izzy would usually follow with anything resembling good grace, not these days, but maybe he also wants all the gory details about Bonnet’s death, because he turns and leaves the room with nary a rolled eye or scowling look.

                Blackbeard manages to regain control of himself, although there’s a brief, hairy moment when he mutters, “piano,” and seems likely to start giggling again. Every second that passes sets Jim’s shoulders tighter, and Frenchie considers holding his breath, just in case a wayward puff of air turns out to be enough to set off either his alarmingly unpredictable captain or equally alarmingly predictable crewmate.

                The tension is borderline unbearable, and Blackbeard doesn’t even seem to notice it, and Frenchie knows that if blood ends up on the floor then he’ll probably be the one cleaning it up, whether or not it belongs to him. Maybe that’s why, when Blackbeard leans back in his chair and sighs out, “Honestly, didn’t think he had a fuckery like that in him,” Frenchie barely takes the time to process the words before he replies, “Quite the love letter, sir.”

                Frenchie hears things, okay? He’s not oblivious, and also Lucius is really bad at keeping secrets at the best of times and hadn’t felt as though he owed Blackbeard much in the way of discretion after being thrown overboard; many of the hours when they undoubtedly should have been planning to get Lucius off the Revenge had actually been spent allowing Lucius to vent his frustrations over recent events, because Captain Bonnet had been very big on the crew learning how to listen without judgment. (“And now I’m reduced to living in Jim’s trunk, all because Blackbeard has never been dumped before. They store their knives in there, Frenchie.”)

                It’s the right thing to say, he knows that it is, the only thing he can think of that might convince Jim that Blackbeard isn’t actually finding joy in Bonnet’s gruesome death and keep Blackbeard from considering that maybe it hadn’t been a fuckery, since by all objective measures it’s really much more likely that Captain Bonnet went and found a way to get himself mauled by a tiger and frankly, if this is Blackbeard after a breakup then Frenchie doesn’t want to see him in mourning. Frenchie still kind of finds himself wishing he hadn’t said it when he sees the look on Blackbeard’s face, caught somewhere between stricken and hopeful.

                He wishes he hadn’t said it or that he had meant it, and then he decides, as he had with Jim all those months earlier, that it doesn’t matter if he hadn’t meant it when he said it, just so long as he means it now.

                Jim breaks the silence, for which Frenchie will be grateful the rest of his life, even if the way they choose to do it is by kicking a bit at the legs of the chair which is currently holding the Dread Pirate Blackbeard and saying, “You still with us? You’re starting to freak me out.”

                Blackbeard’s expression goes shuttered. He grunts and mumbles, “Still here.” He doesn’t seem particularly inclined to look at either of them, but there’s something thoughtful about the set of his mouth, what little of it Frenchie can see past beard and black.

                “What next?” Frenchie asks. He feels a little bad about the thread of wariness he can’t quite keep out of his voice but, in spite of his newly found resolve to mean it, he thinks it’ll be a while before he can get back to thinking of Blackbeard as a still pretty scary but mostly chill guy he’d kind of like to help out instead of a walking, talking, leather-clad omen of Frenchie’s impending death.

                “What else? Only one polite thing to do with a love letter.” Blackbeard yanks his knife’s blade out of the desk, then taps the point idly against the wood, once, twice, three times. “I’m going to respond.”

9. a hand of cards with two red jacks means that you’re in danger from an unknown enemy

                Blackbeard and Izzy are two hands into a friendly game of piquet, Izzy dealing idly while he fills Blackbeard in on what he’s been able to glean from Nassau’s gossips. Blackbeard is smiling and nodding along, even if his eyes are on his cards.

                “Carte blanche,” he says, and then he shoots Izzy under the table.

                The next few minutes involve a lot of yelling and bleeding. Blackbeard is silent the whole time, watching with a kind of distant interest as Fang tries to slow the sluggish pulse of blood from just above Izzy’s knee. Izzy isn’t silent, but he’s also not saying much of substance, mostly just swearing.

                “This isn’t how I remember piquet being played,” Frenchie says to Ivan. “House rules on Blackbeard’s ship?”

                “It’s not—.” Ivan stops. Shrugs. “You know, I’m not going to pretend this hasn’t happened before.”

                Blackbeard nudges Fang aside and takes his place kneeling beside Izzy. He adjusts his bad knee and then leans forward. “Sorry, mate. Was aiming for Frenchie.”

                “Hey,” Frenchie protests. Blackbeard turns his head to look at Frenchie, just for a moment, just long enough to close one eye in a wink. So—a joke. Or a bit of light fuckery. Frenchie appreciates the power of a well-timed fib better than most people do, but he thinks he might mention to Blackbeard that threats of murder aren’t going to be funny for a while. It’s too soon for Frenchie to feel the confidence he’d once had that Ed almost definitely won’t casually shoot him over a minor irritant or because he’s bored or because the clouds told him to or something.

                “You know how it is,” Blackbeard continues, as if Frenchie had never interrupted. “If I don’t kill one of you every once in a while, the crew starts to yap away about how Blackbeard has gone soft.” He slides his knife free of its sheath, and rests the tip just above the new hole in Izzy’s leg. Izzy has stopped swearing. He’s stopped making any noise at all, and he’s stopped moving, and Frenchie isn’t entirely certain that he’s still breathing; the only thing he does seem to be doing is staring at Blackbeard with rapt attention.

                “Isn’t that right, Iz?” Blackbeard asks, soft. He doesn’t wait for an answer. He sets the knife aside and claps his palm across the bloody spot on Izzy’s trousers, pressing down even though the wound has mostly stopped bleeding. Izzy doesn’t even flinch. “I think I’ll leave it in. Something to remember me by.”

                All of the tension bleeds out of Izzy all at once. He sags back against the deck, his head falling against the wood with a quiet thud. His eyes are fixed on the sky when he says, “Fucking retirement.”

                “Or death,” Blackbeard says. “Same thing for the likes of us, eh?” There’s a smile in his voice, but it’s gone almost as soon as Frenchie notes it. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to stay in the Republic of Pirates for a while. Rest up that leg and heal, maybe have a good think about what comes next.” He gives Izzy’s leg a tight squeeze. Even from a few feet away, Frenchie can hear Izzy’s sharp inhale and see the way that his gaze snaps away from the sky and back to Blackbeard’s face. “But before all that, you’re going to do one last task for your captain. Nothing too awful, don’t you fret. Nothing you haven’t done before.”

                Personally, Frenchie has his doubts that there’s much overlap between nothing too awful and things which Izzy Hands has done before, but this time he keeps quiet.

                Izzy doesn’t look happy, but there’s no hesitation in him when he says, “Yes, Blackbeard.”

10. if you find a button while going about your daily tasks, you’ll make a true friend

                “Nice coat, don’t you think?” Ivan asks.

                Frenchie has to lean over the edge of the grave and swing his lantern out as far as his arm will take it to properly see what Ivan is talking about. It is a pretty nice coat, near as Frenchie can tell, although he’s never understood men’s fashion as well as he does embroidery and trimmings and also, through no fault or virtue of his own, women’s unmentionables. At the very least, it’s an expensive coat; Frenchie has never owned anything half as swanky as a the deep green voided velvet justaucorps that Ivan is holding up for his perusal. Frenchie would be appalled that someone had decided to chuck the equivalent of a year’s rent on his granny’s old house in with a dead body, but he’s long since become accustomed to rich people doing rich people things. “Give it here.”

                Ivan casts him a suspicious look, but Frenchie says, “No point in ruining it while you get what we came for,” and apparently that’s enough to convince Ivan that Frenchie isn’t about to run off with his (grave) loot. He hands up the coat, and Frenchie looks at it more closely in the lamplight. “Missing a button.” Its mates are still there, death’s head buttons made of silk dyed the same color as the fabric of the coat. “We find some thread to match and I can make you a replacement.”

                “You don’t have to do that.”

                Frenchie shrugs. “Only seems fair. You’re doing most of the work.” He was willing – barely – to come out to a cemetery after dark, and it had quickly become apparent he wasn’t going to be able to hold his breath the whole time they were here, but standing over a corpse was how a person got gravemerelles. That was probably doubly true if that person was standing there in order to dig the corpse up.

                “You’re holding the lamp,” Ivan says, which is more generous than Frenchie would have expected, even though Ivan has been friendlier in recent days than he had been in those immediately following Blackbeard’s return to the Revenge. Frenchie is pretty sure Fang put in a good word, now that he and Frenchie are co-parenting a cat together.

                Fang had been devastated to leave their furry little witch with her Auntie Jackie, but it wouldn’t be safe for her to come with them when they set sail, not this time. Watching Jim talk Spanish Jackie into babysitting Turnip for a fortnight or two had involved as many knives as Frenchie had expected but a lot more very weird flirting.

                “I thought we had worked this out,” Jackie said to the tip of Jim’s knife. “You killed my favorite husband, I sold you out, we’re all squared up.”

                “Uh-huh,” Jim was as casual about the flintlock Jackie had shoved into their ribs as they were about the knife they were holding under Jackie’s chin. “Funny thing about that. I only technically killed one of your husbands. How many times did you sell me out, again?”

                “Damn.” Jackie lowered her gun. “I was really hoping you wouldn’t find out about the English. All right, fair enough. What can I do for you?”

                Jim eyed the box in Frenchie’s arms. The box meowed plaintively. Jim sighed, and Frenchie thought that they looked a little embarrassed. “A favor, and some information, but drinks first,” they had said, right before they dropped into the chair beside Jackie. “I still can’t believe Alfeo was your favorite. What’re the other nineteen like?”

                “I mean, you met Geraldo.”

                “Uff. You can do better.” Jim looked at Jackie out of the corner of their eye, lips tilting in a smirk. “Hard to do worse, at least.” Jackie’s answering laugh had nearly made Frenchie jump out of his skin. His memory gets a little drink fuzzed after that, but in the morning he had been missing a shoe and Turnip had been asleep on Spanish Jackie’s chest, so it must’ve worked out all right.

                Ivan tosses his shovel up on the edge of the grave. “Hand me my ax?”

                What follows is as quick as it is gross; Ivan really is the most efficient member of the crew. Frenchie has been around, he’s seen things, but he still has to fight back the urge to quietly chant ew ew ew while he helps Ivan maneuver the head into the fancy embroidered pillowcase Blackbeard had given them for the task.

                Jim doesn’t seem significantly phased when Frenchie drops both pillowcase and head on the table in front of them. They just set the last of their dinner aside and say, “Fang found the last of Captain Bonnet’s fancy candles, but I still need hair. Human is better, but I can make horse work.”

                “Captain—other captain—has a whole sack of the stuff. I asked him why—.”

                “Why would you ask that?”

                “—and he said that he’d tried, but he just couldn’t make the hair look convincing, and that was why Ivan and me needed to go and get him a real head.”

                “Wow,” Jim says. “That just raises a whole lot of other questions that I also don’t really want the answers to.”

                “Yeah.” An upsetting possibility presents itself to Frenchie. “Do we think the hair is Captain Bonnet’s and he’s just kept it all this time for sentimental reasons, or—?”

                This receives from Jim the disgusted response that a severed head hadn’t. “Why would you ask that?”

                Frenchie shrugs. He pats Jim on the shoulder, and Jim allows it, but they wave a hand to stop him before he can leave to fetch Captain’s Disturbing Hair Sack. “Hey. Do you really think he’s alive? Bonnet?” Their tone broadly implies that Stede Bonnet had already been beating the odds by surviving into adulthood, and that such luck couldn’t last forever. Frenchie is generally inclined to agree, but he’s been thinking about this a lot since Blackbeard had first decided that Bonnet’s death had been the fuckery to end all fuckeries.

                “I think,” Frenchie says, “that Lucius told me once that he’d never learned Latin.”

                “Huh.” Jim lets out a gusty sigh, equal parts irritated and resigned. “Fine. Go get me my hair. I guess we’re seeing this through.”

11. during a dinner party, never seat thirteen people at the table

                The problem with conning a rich person, Frenchie has long since decided, is that an unavoidable part of the process involves talking to a rich person. There are eight fabulously wealthy and respectable pillars of the community seated around Blackbeard’s table with the sad remains of the Revenge’s crew, and Frenchie is sick of listening to each and every one of them, thanks very much. At least he isn’t waiting on them this time; it’s pirates they’ve come here to see, and it’s pirates they’ve been given. Fang is looking particularly disreputable, and Frenchie admires his commitment to not breaking character. Their guests seem suitably impressed when he hisses at them.

                It’s funny, almost: all of these men would have sworn that they’d like nothing better than to see the local pirate population hanged and gibbeted, but not a single one of them had been able to resist the novelty and excitement of accepting an invitation to dine with the famous Blackbeard.

                “What a curious little person you are,” one of them says, peering through his quizzing glass at Jim. “What is your name?”

                “Sorry,” Frenchie says, “my friend here is mute.” Jim casts him a begrudgingly grateful look, but dinner does not improve from there. Blackbeard looks increasingly likely to cause a scene every time someone offers a condescending compliment about his table manners (admittedly beautiful; apparently he and Captain Bonnet really had spent all that time locked in the captain’s cabin studying etiquette, which means that every single member of the crew had lost that bet), and Ivan’s expression becomes stonier every time he hears another barely disguised insult to the food (it’s true he can’t do the things with ship’s biscuits that Roach can, but neither can anyone else, because Roach is an artist). They’re using those parts of Captain Bonnet’s silver set that weren’t thrown overboard months ago, and Frenchie is pretty sure he sees someone palm one of the last remaining butter picks, which—why?

                Barely an hour has passed before Frenchie starts to think that maybe it would be best to just move things along before one – or all – of the Revenge’s crew decides to spoil a perfectly good plan with satisfying but premature bloodshed. He lists to the side, until he’s leaning close enough to Blackbeard to be heard. “Should I—?”

                “Yeah, better.”

                None of their guests seem to notice when Frenchie exits the room, but that’s nothing unusual. He’d kind of been counting on it. He finds the two sailors who had rowed the party over to the Revenge standing on deck, talking idly while one of them puffs away on a cheap clay pipe. “Hello,” Frenchie says. “How would you like to make a truly obscene amount of money?”

                The elder of the two, the one smoking the pipe, gives Frenchie a long, considering look. “Might could be convinced. What would we have to do?”

                “Just go back to your ship,” Frenchie says, “and when we board, play along.”

                The old sailor takes a long drag from his pipe before responding. “You planning to ransom them?” He looks at his companion. “Told you so.”

                From the shrugging response, the young sailor also had not been convinced that their bosses weren’t walking into a trap. “That would be kind in comparison to what Blackbeard plans to do to them,” Frenchie says, instead of offering any kind of actual explanation. He tries to instill the words with an appropriate amount of menace. Both sailors smile. Bless. Frenchie likes them already.

                A price is agreed upon. Hands are shaken. A modest chest of hoarded booty is handed over with ease, mostly because the money is Blackbeard’s and not Frenchie’s. The pair departs, and Frenchie returns to the captain’s cabin.

                Blackbeard catches Frenchie’s eye. Frenchie nods. He spots one of those fleeting smiles that the captain has been wearing more and more often as of late, and he wonders if Blackbeard will miss this part: the pageantry, the drama, the bits that are more fun than bloody or life threatening. Maybe that’s just Frenchie. After all, Blackbeard enjoys bloodshed and doesn’t feel fear. (Neither is true, not entirely. Frenchie is pretty sure of that, even as he thinks it.)

                Blackbeard stands, then steps up onto his chair, and from there onto the table. “Gentlemen,” he says, hands spread wide. It’s properly theatrical, and the men Blackbeard has invited here for dinner are still watching like they’re an audience, as though Blackbeard exists only to entertain them and the thought of there being any real threat to their well-being is so inconceivable it hasn’t even been considered. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you all here tonight.” Even when Blackbeard pulls out his pistol and cocks the hammer, Frenchie detects only the faintest stirrings of unease. “I’d like to formally welcome you to Blackbeard’s crew.”

                Now, something like a protest begins to ripple down the table. Fang grips the arm of the man seated to his left. “Come along,” he says. “If you’re to be a pirate, we’ve got to make you look the part.”

                They have hours until the sun rises. By the time it does, they’re as ready as they’re going to be, and the black dot on the horizon has turned into the unmistakable silhouette of a British ship of the line.

12. if your right hand itches, you’re about to come into money

                “That’s it, boys,” Fang yells from where he stands, half-hidden by the door to the cabin. He sounds genuinely encouraging. After a few more seconds of observation, he eases the door closed and sighs. “I almost feel bad. Who’d have thought that lot would have so much fight in them?”

                “All down to your inspired costume choices,” Frenchie says, without looking away from the star shaped beauty patch he’s applying to Jim’s scowling, powder-drenched face. “I think it helped them to get into character as bloodthirsty pirates, you know?”

                “Aww,” Fang says. “You’re sweet, but I really think it was the death threats.” He leans closer to examine what Frenchie is doing. Frenchie would be the first to admit that he’s not exactly practiced at this – he really wishes Lucius was here – but he thinks he’s managing. Fang must agree, because his grunt sounds complimentary and he says, “Help me with my wig next?”

                Frenchie helps settle a confection of pink-tinted curls over Fang’s head, which takes longer than it should because he keeps having to slap Fang’s fingers away when Fang tries to adjust the periwig himself, and then he has to offer moral support because it itches against Fang’s scalp. By the time that Blackbeard storms into the cabin, smelling of sweat and blood and gunpowder, Frenchie and Jim have just about figured out how to tie Ivan’s cravat.

                “You’re a mess,” Jim says. They clearly still think this plan is going to be a disaster, and Frenchie is just glad that they’ve decided to find that funny rather than frustrating.

                Blackbeard spreads his arms wide, all swagger and recent violence. “I’m fuckin’ Blackbeard.”

                “Yeah,” Frenchie says, “but, uh, you’re not supposed to be.” He gets an eye roll in response, but Blackbeard must find the argument convincing, because he gestures for Frenchie to follow him into the small side room that contains Captain Bonnet’s tub – inexplicably bolted down, impossible to move without ripping up half the floor – and very little else. The water is dingy and cold, but that doesn’t seem to bother Blackbeard as he hastily scrubs his face and arms.

                “Under your arms, too,” Frenchie says, and now he sounds like his aunt, or like Captain Bonnet. Blackbeard ignores him in favor of grabbing the straight razor from beside the tub. He looks around, like he’s expecting to find a mirror, as though he hadn’t personally ordered it thrown overboard months ago. Frenchie doesn’t roll his eyes because he likes them being in his head, but he does hold out a hand. “Here, let me.” He’s already taken Fang’s beard off. Fang had shaved Ivan’s, and Frenchie had asked for Jim’s help, because even though letting them put a knife to his throat again was deeply disquieting, Frenchie hadn’t wanted them to feel left out.

                Blackbeard hesitates.

                “Oh, come on,” Frenchie says, “if I was going to kill you, I would have,” no, incorrect, “Jim would have done it ages ago, when you were still being a dick and before we went through all this trouble.”

                “Couldn’t have killed me,” Blackbeard says, but he won’t meet Frenchie’s eyes when he says it and he reluctantly hands over the razor. He’s silent while Frenchie lathers his cheeks and begins to scrape away Blackbeard’s black beard.

                “We never really talked about—.” Blackbeard sounds even more unenthusiastic about whatever it is he’s about to say than he had at the thought of letting Frenchie run a sharp object over his neck.

                “We can do that later,” Frenchie says, because Blackbeard might be known for giving no quarter, but Frenchie can be merciful. “Even Captain Bonnet waited until after a fight to talk about feelings.”

                Frenchie thinks that it’s probably his imagination that makes him read gratitude in Blackbeard’s grunt of acknowledgement, at least until he’s squinting to finish up the tricky bit over the hinge of Blackbeard’s jaw and hears him mutter, “Thanks.”

                “No problem, man,” he says. “What are friends for?” He doesn’t even need to see the startled, wild-eyed look that Blackbeard directs his way to know that this is another of those terrible things that he says and then ends up having to mean.

                He mops away the last of the soap on Blackbeard’s chin and steps back. “There we go, don’t you look lovely,” he says hastily, lest the feelings talk happen with or without his say-so. “Go ahead and get dressed, Captain. We probably don’t have a whole lot of time.”

                Blackbeard grunts again, but before Frenchie can leave he says, “Edward is fine. Ed.” He clears his throat awkwardly. “Won’t be your captain for much longer, after all.”

                Frenchie rejoins the others, and Blackbeard—Edward? Ed—follows him out a few minutes later. The suit he’s put on isn’t the one they had set aside for him, but a light brown doeskin wool that Frenchie thinks he remembers Captain Bonnet wearing. Frenchie decides not to ask where it had come from. Instead, he waits while Ivan settles the last of the wigs on top of Ed’s hair, and then he dusts both wig and newly shorn face liberally with powder. He’s debating the merits of rouge when a commotion outside the door of the cabin makes it clear that they’re out of time. Ed will have to do without rosy cheeks.

                “Places,” Fang snaps. He and Ivan are a little quicker about finding their marks than Frenchie and Jim are; they’ve helped with a Blackbeard-style fuckery before.

                The door bangs open, and in pours what appears to be half of the British navy, pistols and rapiers at the ready. None of them look like they entirely know what to do when Frenchie warbles out, “Oh, thank goodness you’re here. Those foul pirates took us hostage, and we were sure that we were done for!”

                “Overselling it a bit, mate,” Ed mutters. Frenchie shrugs.

                “You’re—captives?” asks a man with enough gold trim on his cuffs for Frenchie to assume that he’s important.

                “That’s right,” Frenchie says.

                He can see doubt on the man’s face, but then Ed steps forward and grabs something off the table, where the sad remains of the previous night’s dinner service are still sitting out. “They said that they would skin us,” Ed says, a very convincing quiver to his voice, “with this snail fork.”

                No more than half an hour later, the five of them are escorted onto the naval ship. Someone drapes a blanket across Frenchie’s shoulders in a conciliatory way that he quite enjoys, and someone else barks out an order for tea. Frenchie catches a brief glimpse of Blackbeard’s head hanging from the bowsprit before one of the officers takes him by the elbow and gently leads him away. “No need to trouble yourself with that gruesome sight, my good man.”

                It is pretty gruesome. Pretty convincing, too. Looks just like Blackbeard. He makes a mental note to tell Jim what an impressive job they’d done with their purloined head. “You’re too kind,” he murmurs, and allows himself to be led.

                “We’ll have you back at your ship in no time. I’d be happy to give you the use of a few of my men until you make port, if you like. I can’t imagine you have much faith in sailors who wouldn’t die defending their captain from pirates.”

                Frenchie considers it, because agreeing to an escort of mariners and soldiers will certainly sell the con, but in spite of his extreme faith that his new sailor friends with their new chest of doubloons will swear convincingly that the people reclaiming the ship are the same people who had left it the night before, it doesn’t seem worth the risk. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary. We all just want to put this behind us.”

                “Certainly, certainly. I’m sure that you’re eager to be home after such a harrowing ordeal.”

                Frenchie looks at the officer, with his smooth hands and his well-worn cat on his belt, and thinks, eh, fuck it. He sighs, deeply. “Not my home, I’m afraid. My home is very far away. You see—.” He pauses. “Oh, but I shouldn’t say. Maybe, though—you seem like a trustworthy sort of fellow. And you did save our lives. Surely I can tell you.”

                The officer has leaned forward without even seeming to be aware that he’s doing it. Hooked. Frenchie determinedly does not smile. “Of course you can confide in me. I’m the very soul of discretion.”

                After making a great show of looking around to make sure no one else is close enough to listen, Frenchie also leans in. “You see that fetching young thing over there?” he asks, pointing to where Jim is standing on the other side of the deck. “That’s the sworn companion of Crown Prince Aziz of Egypt, who is even now languishing in a prison in Spain under a false identity...”

13. don’t say goodbye before setting sail if you wish to meet again

                Frenchie stands beside Ed on the beach, watching as Jim tosses one last bag of provisions into the dinghy. “You’ll be all right?”

                 “Always am.” Ed seems to realize that’s not really a sufficient answer, because he adds, “I’ll be fine. Better now.”

                “Could always try for more than fine,” Frenchie says musingly. “I’m sort of thinking of aiming for happy. I mean, it’ll probably end horribly, but it might be worth it, you know?”

                “No,” Ed says with a snort. He’s silent for a long moment before he adds softly, “I probably don’t deserve to be happy.”

                “Maybe not. But since when has what a person deserves had anything to do with what they get?”

                “Dark,” Jim says approvingly as they rejoin the group, and there’s no mistaking the noise that Ed makes for anything other than a laugh.

                “Don’t be a stranger,” Frenchie says.

                Ed looks at him, then shakes his head and claps Frenchie’s shoulder. “Fair winds.”

                They put in to port at the Republic of Pirates a few weeks later, the four remaining members of the crew of Blackbeard’s Revenge having a much easier time with the trim little sloop they had taken from their gentlemen-turned-pirate captives than they ever had with Bonnet’s beautiful but bloated ship. “I’m going to Jackie’s,” Jim says, almost immediately after they set foot on land. “If anyone knows where the rest of the crew is now, it’ll be her.”

                “I’ll come,” Frenchie says. “I kind of want to kiss Turnip’s furry little face.” He looks over at Fang, but Fang shakes his head regretfully.

                “Ivan is banned,” he explains.

                “It was a misunderstanding,” Ivan mutters, which is fascinating but will have to wait, because Jim has lost patience and Frenchie has to hurry to catch up with them. He doesn’t quite manage it, but that’s fine; he knows where Jim is going.

                By the time he reaches Spanish Jackie’s, Jim has already disappeared inside, but there’s someone else, almost as familiar, standing right before the doors.

                “Are ye Frenchie,” Buttons intones, “or merely his phantom, come now upon land to torment me?”

                “It’s me.”

                “Aye,” Buttons says with satisfaction, “Jim already told me. I was just having a laugh,” and Frenchie is briefly so overcome with weird affection for his weird crew that he drops a kiss on Button’s whiskered cheek. Buttons looks pleased. This is probably why no one takes them seriously as pirates.

                “Captain’s inside,” Buttons adds, and the brief hesitation before he says it is enough for Frenchie to know that they hadn’t beaten the gossip back to Nassau, much as they had tried. Frenchie nods his thanks, and heads into Spanish Jackie’s.

                Bonnet looks terrible, and maybe that’s why Jackie had let him into her bar, for all that Frenchie has never found her to be particularly motivated by pity. Lucius is sitting with him, but rises and hurries over as soon as he sees Frenchie. “Good, you’re not dead,” he says. “Can you watch him for a bit? Oluwande has disappeared to who knows where,” that probably explains why there’s no sign of Jim to be seen, “and I need a break.”

                “Sure. I was hoping to have a chat.”

                “Fantastic,” Lucius says. Frenchie knows him well enough by now not to take the sarcasm personally. Lucius turns to go, then turns back to Frenchie and pats his shoulder. “Good, you’re not dead,” he says again, this time with a bit more deliberate sincerity, and then he departs.

                Bonnet barely looks away from his untouched drink when Frenchie drops into Lucius’ chair. “Oh. Frenchie. Hello.” He returns his gaze to whatever questionable liquid has been used to fill his cup, before he seems to realize. His chin snaps back up and his eyes go wide. “Oh! Frenchie!”

                “Hi, Captain. Good to see you, too.”

                “Oh, I—I’m sorry, Frenchie, of course it’s wonderful to see you.” He cranes his neck to look around, like he’s expecting to find Blackbeard hidden under Frenchie’s coattails. “And you’re—alone?”

                “Jim is here,” Frenchie says, “somewhere. And Ivan and Fang are back with the ship.”

                Bonnet visibly deflates. Frenchie watches as he struggles to find something resembling appropriate small talk after the better part of a year’s separation, before he shakes his head and gives up. “I heard that Izzy has received a royal pardon,” he says instead, slow and careful despite how eager he clearly is to broach this particular topic, “for his part in delivering Blackbeard to justice.”

                “Good,” Frenchie says, and before the indignation really has a chance to settle on Bonnet’s face, he adds, “Ed will be glad to hear that bit of his plan worked.”

                It doesn’t look like Captain Bonnet is breathing, although he must be, since he’s still able to speak. Sort of. “Oh—so he’s—it was—.”

                “A fuckery. Like yours. Guess he was right about that bit, too.”

                Bonnet swallows thickly. “I see. Do you—do you happen to know where I might find him?”

                “Got the coordinates right here. Reckon our new captain would be willing to drop you off. You haven’t done anything to make Olu mad recently, have you?”

                A slow smile has started to spread across Bonnet’s face, like he hasn’t just been politely informed of another mutiny. “I see. Does Oluwande know that he’s captain?”

                “Jim will probably get around to telling him. Eventually. I, uh, don’t imagine that was first on their list.”

                Bonnet laughs, and Frenchie smiles, and he thinks—he thinks that maybe this is happy, that maybe this is how someone builds home even if they can never go back to the one they left, that maybe he’s finally made his own luck.

                “Come on,” he says, standing. “Much to do before we set sail.”